My Dearest Immigrants

 

Elsie Schell Cowan and Thomas Cowan, mid-60s?

Gramma and Grampa, as I called them, my grandparents, lived a short walk away from my childhood home. Thomas Cowan and Elsie Schell Cowan were my daddy's parents, I came to understand. My mother called them Mom and Dad too, so it took my child's mind awhile to figure out that they could not be Mom's mother and father! Maybe this was why I was interested in the family history early on - I wanted to understand why I only knew one set of grandparents.

Thomas Cowan

My grandfather, Tom Cowan, immigrated here from Canada in 1924. He was born in Puslinch township, Wellington County, Ontario, on his family's farm, Juniper Hill Farm. His great-grandfather established the farm in 1832, when he and his family and some neighbors (perhaps relatives) emigrated from Yarrow Feus, Selkirkshire, Scotland to Puslinch in Upper Canada. The house they built still is lived in. Grandpa's parents sold the Century Farm between 1911 and 1921 and moved across Canada to British Columbia. I thought Grandpa followed his oldest sister  to Seattle, but after checking the records, find that he came first.

Section of naturalization record proving date of entry the US for the purpose of settling here, 9 January 1924. 

Grandpa served in the Great War, as it was called then, signing up in Ontario but served in Texas! He was part of the Royal Canadian Flying Corps, and was a mechanic fixing all the wrecked training aircraft for both American and Canadian pilots. After the Armistice, he joined his parents and is enumerated in the 1921 Canadian Census in Burnaby, BC. His oldest brother Aleck had moved out to Cariboo, BC by 1910, when he married there. The Armistice  was 11 November 1918, and it is unknown whether Grandpa went back to Ontario to help the family move west and say goodbye to those who were staying, or headed to to BC directly. In any case, he seems to have learned how to install and service elevators there before taking the train (G. N. Ry. is the Great Northern Railway) to Seattle. He married Grandma in 1925. 

Tom marries Elsie Schell

Here is part of the marriage certificate, showing that my aunt Gladys witnessed for her sister, and my uncle Walter (whom I never met) traveled from BC to witness for his brother Tom, 21 March 1925. 

But First, Double Date On Green Lake

Union Local 19 news

The man Gladys married, Frank Gray, worked with Grandpa at the Otis Elevator Company, and it seems that Gladys and Frank set up Tom and Elsie to meet skating on Green Lake, which according to the story, froze hard enough to make that safe. 

Elsie Ingaborg Schell

Grandma was born 7 October 1904 in Duluth, St Louis, Minnesota. Her parents were both recent immigrants to the US from Sweden, coming to Minnesota where many other Swedes had come. It seems they both attended the same Duluth, Minnesota church where they met and married in 1894. They had 7 children born in Duluth, Elsie being the youngest. They moved to Seattle before April 1907 when her youngest brother Ted was born at 608 Howell in Seattle; the same house where her mother Selma Andersdotter Schell and all the children are pictured below, and grandma grew up:

Back: Gladys, Selma, Helen, Florence, William, Emery. Front: Ted (in Selma's lap), Elsie

Isn't she a cutie? Probably two years old. 

Superior Hardtack and Toast Company

Elsie's father, Charles Schell (Käll in Sweden), was a baker in Duluth, and was asked to move to Seattle and run the Superior Hardtack and Toast Company. Searching for his business, I found most of a page in the Seattle Daily Times, Sunday 28 September 1924, page 69, all columns, headlined "TonsAndTonsOfRyeHardTackMadeInSeattle." The article outlined both the history of the company and why there was such demand for hardtack! Lots of photos, including one of Elsie's father Charles and the founder of the company.

Seattle Daily Times, Sunday 28 September 1924, page 69, all columns, "TonsAndTonsOfRyeHardTackMadeInSeattle"

I'm sorry we've found no wedding photos of the young couple, but here is one of her in the summer, smiling. I hope it is clear enough to see. She's rowing a small boat in calm water; perhaps at a Seattle park or at their camping property at Suquamish, a ferry ride away from the young Seattle family. 

I didn't see a smile on my grandma's face very often. I'm sure she never got over losing her brother William when he was only 20, and she 16, or the tragic death by drowning of her son Donald when he was only 12. 

Grief

While grief seemed to soften Grandpa and make him more loving, it  hardened Grandma. 

This is the last picture I took of her with my newborn daughter Anne, and she did smile for the camera.

Elsie Schell Cowan and her newborn granddaughter Anne Zimmerman, February 1980

Valorie Zimmerman